Real Madrid Lose (Again)

In the world of international football (soccer for the American audience) Real Madrid is undoubtedly one of the top teams. It shares the stage with the likes of FC Barcelona and Manchester United. Although both Madrid and Barcelona were outplayed in the major European tournament (champion's league) by a pair of German teams, there is no question: Spanish football is among the best in the world. 

I have heard the Brits complain about the Spanish style of play. The Spanish do occassionally resort to (usually poor) demonstrations of theatrics in order to get a call to go their way.  Frequent falling to the ground for dubious reasons means they are looked upon as sissy-boys by their sturdier, Northern neighbours. The English - inventors of this worldwide game - have not evolved in style of play. Watch an English game, and you find yourself back in the 60's. the German national team deserves a sincere pat on the back for proving it is possible for a team to consciously change styles. Between 2006 and 2010, the Germans went from oafish bullies (a la English) to class acts; whilst the Dutch regressed to brutish, unfair play in a desperate attempt to win the World Cup against Del Bosque's Spanish team.

None of this is news or original thought. Nor is it what I meant to write; I have digressed to national team (world cup) conversations as opposed to the club team news where I started.  To get back on point: Real Madrid suffered a blow in the recent derby in which they lost to Athletic Madrid, the traditional underdog of Madrid football.  Rumours have it that the players are sick of the coach, the Portuguese Mourinho; and that by the end of the week (if not the end of the day), Mou will be gone.

This makes me sad because he is a good-looking man with very nice dress sense, and his dark and brooding manner with his endearing Portuguese accent when speaking Spanish always gives me a chuckle. The die hard fans will probably say, "good-riddance" whilst the silly fair-weather fans will pine for the Darcy of football.  Oh, Mou.

Mind Turns to You after Coming Back Home

I 

I have three categories in my Feedly account: "uncategorised", "dormant", and "blogger following". There are only two blogs in the "blogger following" category. It would be safe to say that the 'blogger following' category was a whim that became a default in some setting somewhere and really doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

The dormant category contains all those blogs that have been sleeping for years. The sleeping beauties for whom I wait. Not many have arisen. Some have. Some have made attempts before submitting again to the inactivity of sleep.

The uncatgorised category contains those of you who keep me company. I really do thank you all.   I am thinking of writing to each of you - or rather of each of you.  To tell you what my impression of you is.  I wonder if that would be of interest to you.  I wonder if I would surprise you, disappoint you, or make you all happy with praise.  I am still thinking on whether this is a good idea or not.

 Tonight I was supposed to go out.

In fact, I did go out.

 My going out didn't last as long as I had hoped (though in my head I had anticipated that my going out would not be the wild all-nighter that maybe it once would have been).

 I am often 'out' but usually early in the evening and with the dog. On our walks we may stop into one of the dog-friendly locals. These visits don't feel like 'going out'. Tonight I was going out on my own. Me and the mobi (so I could at least look engaged if things felt too weird). I was going to listen to music (and Shazam it if I liked it well enough) and watch people (ant talk to them if they looked worth liking). By 21:30 (which is not even 'leave your house' in Spanish time), I had thrown in the towel and ended up back at The Man's flat with a burrito and quesadillas to share. We are good at sharing food. We are good at most everything, but not being the couple that everyone expects us to be. We're ok.

On Socks, Hats, and Wellies

It is still raining in Madrid. I am almost of a mind to complain, but then I remember I never complained that much about rain in London so it doesn't seem right (although I adhere to my theory that rain is fatter, and therefore more bothersome, in Madrid). Also, I have heard that this year there is snow in April in the UK! Snow! April! Makes me think back to early April 2002 when I managed to get a sunburn during one hour's rental of a stripy lawn chair in Green Park. I was wearing an expensive, silk, ankle-length, wrap-around skirt with a black and brown pattern - a hand-me-down from my mother. I had jacked it up to above my knees so my calves could feel the sunshine. Who would have thought the English sunshine could leave a painful impression days afterwards? I may have bought aloe at Boots.*

It is still raining in Madrid. Only today did I notice an obvious English influence on Spanish fashion rain apparel. The pavement is stomped with the imprint of Wellies. It initially flabbergasted me; now, it shames me. I was flabbergasted that the Spanish would embrace a trend so obviously seasonal, and not very seasonal to Spain.** Shamed because I have a very fashionable pair of Wellies that have been standing on top of my 'utility closet' for 2+ years. I have only very occasionally thought to get them down and put them on. On those occasional occasions of thought, I have been too lazy to make the effort. From beneath my umbrella I glower at the fashionable Spanish ladies with dry feet. It would have made sense to follow fashion this month.

After noticing footwear, my attention turns to heads. There is a style of hat that seems particularly designed for inclement weather, yet I don't really remember seeing this style in the UK. It seems to me to be a style, like Wellies, completely un-Spanish, but embraced with vigour. The only place I can remember seeing this style with such a frequency that it can be called a trend is in Spain. I wouldn't have thought the Spanish would be so prepared for rain. At one time I had one of these hats. It was gifted to me (by a Madrileña) and was too small for my head. I gifted it to a charity shop. It might have come in handy - even in its too small state - this month.

In other news, The Dog is wearing my socks. She has a rather large and serious-looking cut on one of those pads that dogs have on the bottom of their feet. I am frequently stopped and asked why she is wearing a sock. I am tempted to say it is an English fashion. It would be interesting to see how many dogs in Madrid would then be strolling around in people socks.

*A sunburn from an April day must have made an impression because I mentioned it previously in a post in 2008.

** I should know better. The Spanish are, in the immortal words of the Kinks, "dedicated followers of fashion."

Local Racy Fare

Although it has been slightly warmer than winter, the skies in Madrid have been mostly gray. Rain has come down either in large well spaced-out drops that don't really require an umbrella (or inspire you to open the one you do have) or in large super-close-together drops better resembling buckets-of-water-dropping than drops. The theme here is that raindrops in Madrid tend to be large, fat things so when they do come down thick and fast, an umbrella is absolutely essential. This week I mastered the habit of locking my door, calling for the lift, hearing meteorological happenings in the inner courtyard of the building and remembering I should bring my umbrella. The dog is still there, at the door, when I unlock it. Even she knows I have almost forgotten my brollie.

It is one of these mornings when I have almost forgotten my umbrella but haven't, and the rain drops fall infrequently enough that there is no point to opening the umbrella in my hand. It is late enough in the morning that the streets do not feel sleepy, yet early enough that the pavement is relatively free from competing pedestrians. I am on my way to the gym. This is a route I have followed for well over a year.

Left outside my door.
First left (onto a quaint tree lined street with the typical mix of ground floor commerce - restaurants, bars, flower shops, off-licenses).
First right (at the corner where a green cross will indicate if the farmacia is open or closed).
First left and three manzanas (normally "apples" but in this context "blocks"), and I will have arrived.

This morning, after I have made my second left, I become aware of a familiar feeling. I breathe deeply and purposefully. My grip on the closed umbrella feels sure and strong, and this strength echoes throughout my total being. Looking down the block, I am not bothered by the patina of wet gray. The trees still haven't recovered their foliage, yet somehow spring is here and I feel it. I suddenly remember my first ever conscious greeting of spring - some 20 years ago in Washington DC. It was a very different morning. The sun was out, and I was on a well-manicured university campus. Tulips were blooming all over the place. I remember feeling strongly alive and happy. I have the same feeling this morning. Spring does that.

I turn right, past the farmacia. It's closed.

I notice an entry on the hand-written chalkboard menu of a local tapas bar-restaurant. Pulpo con tetilla. The literal translation makes me laugh out loud.

It's not noble feelings associated with spring that urge me to blog, but rather the octopus with little tits.

Ellie Sits Between EnviroMom and BioMom

I finally manage to get around to (c):  The Mom Sandwich.

My Mom - my 'real' mom* - was keen to meet Biomom and vice versa.  On the third day, we made it happen.  Again, I took it upon myself to determine the location.  For this meeting, I didn't worry about the ambiance of the locale so much, but focused almost exclusively on a good geographical midway point between our respective lodgings.  The coordinates pointed to the Bellevue mall just outside Seattle.  "There's got to be a Starbucks there." I told myself.  (Now is not the time to launch into a defense of Starbucks, but it has its place and excels at convenience, and sometimes that's just what you want.)

It was all agreed.   The 3rd Day.  Bellevue Mall.  Starbucks.

Unfortunately, the 3rd day happened to also be the 4th day after Christmas.

Bio Step Dad and Bio half sister also showed up.  Bio Step Dad must have been thinking, 'Who's friggin' brilliant idea was it to meet in a MALL on the heels of Xmas?"  I put my hand up before he or anyone commented on the stupidity of the idea.  "What was I thinking?  This place is a mob scene!"

Lesson learnt:  I am not one for choosing venues - especially not for big, momentous occasions.

The meetings of the two moms didn't really FEEL momentous.

At the Starbucks kiosk, I waited in line - perhaps a little bit awkwardly - with my Bio-little-sister.  She dropped her phone on the hard tiled floor.  The phone broke open at the seams, and the battery fell out, but after re-assembling it still worked.  Whilst all this excitement happened, my mom was sitting quietly with my mom in the hubbub of post Christmas shoppers.

I don't know why I didn't want to be with them for their first few minutes together.  My therapist would probably have said that the potential show of emotion at their meeting would be too much for me.  Apparently I don't like to get too emotional (this would come as a surprise to quite a few of my friends and acquaintances; which,  in turn, I take as a good sign for having broken up with my therapist). I suspected the mom meeting was going to be a festival of gratitude:

 "Thank you so much for allowing me to raise this darling  preciousness!"

 "No, thank you for raising my sweet, precious baby in such a loving home."

 "No, thank you!"

 "Thank you!"

 "Thank you!"

Maybe I was afraid I would be overlooked in the midst of so much gratitude.

My little bio-half-sister and I joined my two mothers after getting their respective drinks from the lady at the Starbucks counter.

The mothers exchanged gratitude, as I expected.  Then they went on to exchange embarrassing stories of  us (me and bio-half sister) as children.

All in all, it was as normal an odd family meeting as one could imagine.

When little somehow-cousin saw the picture of me between my two moms he enthused, "Moms are the bread, and Ellie's the meat!"

A good summary:  I'm meat. (*winks*)

*A term I have learnt can lead to confusion and offense ... as an example of confusion: the little somehow cousins assumed 'real' mom would mean the woman who gave birth to me; I corrected them straight away, it still took them some time to get their head around it.  Kids can be so god damn literal. Examples of offense abound on the internet; I have no personal examples to share.

Lisa Goes Down

1.  Google has announced the end of Reader.  It surprises me that none of my blog friends have mentioned this development.  I remember the time before Reader.  I never got into RSS feeds beforehand.  I simply clicked on every one of the blog links on my site to check if there were updates.  In retrospect, it was a time-consuming process, yet enjoyable.  I am still mulling over how I'll keep up after 1 July (burial date for Reader).

My mind wanders to darker places.  What will I do if Google deem Blogger end-able?

2.  I seem to remember Proust wrote in bed.  I am thinking about this because I have the itch to do some writing, but am struggling with the perfect environment.  I love my desk, yet I find it kills inspiration.  I suspect this sad, inspiration-killing character of my beloved desk has a lot to do with the fact that most of my time at the desk has been for work-related purposes, and the associations just don't inspire.  I am comfortable in bed, and am looking for an excuse to stay here. So I think about a piece of trivia I picked up somewhere along the line of my life.  Proust (was it Proust?) wrote in bed.

3.  The London Olympics are done and dusted.  I'm a little late to the game.  Someone recently pointed out that the logo had Lisa Simpson doing something naughty.

Some Family Tree'd

Credit:  Unbearable Banishment

Here is the universe.  I am the centre. And bold. And bright.

To the left of centre, some of my family I have known my whole life.  To the right, the biofamily.

Each side contains 'steps'; each side contains 'halves' (the halves of the 'family I have known my whole life' are not pictured because they are on my unpictured, father's side.).

I have referenced my gimpy uncle previously.  Due to his gimpy condition, he was not able to have children of his own.  The woman he married, my aunt, had two children from their previous marriage.  The 'kids' are the steps.

The use of "halves" and "steps" has mostly fallen away from the family I have know my whole life.  These mere words only re-emerge as an academic exercise in familial specification.  The family I have know my whole life is family without any real need for specification.  I wonder if the 'halves' and 'steps' will fall away from the 'biofamily' - or indeed, if 'bio' as a designation will fade into the background.  We'll see.

In any event, why didn't anyone tell me that there was some screwy formatting errors in the penultimate post?  I'm certain it was 'right' when I hit 'publish'.  Later I played with Blogger for iPad in order to include a link; I wonder if that is what resulted in randomly-squashed words.  It's all correct now (fingers are crossed).  Phew.

Body Goes Out

Seattle and environs was the most obvious and convenient city for the bio-meetings.

1) I was born there. It seems fitting that you should know your mom for the first time in the city where you were born.

2) Although Bio-mom does not live in Washington State, she lives close enough, from an American sense-of-size perspective.

3) Both Bio-mom and I have family in and/or around Seattle. In my case, an uncle, aunt, cousins, and their children ...

... the formal familial designation of these children escapes me .... 2nd cousins? Cousins once removed? ...

... In Bio-mom's case, her son lives in the Seattle area with his wife and two children (my bio-half-sister-in-law and the bio-half-nephews!). Seattle was thus a natural choice for both "normal" family Christmases as well as surreal bio-meetings.

The surrealism started with an invitation to dinner.

Over lunch of bio-meet 1, Bio-mom had asked if I would want to go to dinner at the bio-half-brother's house. "Your mother is welcome to join us as well."

Did I forget to mention that Mom-Mom (aka "real mom") joined me in the Pacific Northwest for both the "normal" family Christmas (with her brother, my uncle and relations) as well as morale support during the potentially awkward, emotionally cataclysmic bio-meetings?

I had come a long way to meet my genes; I would certainly make the most of it, but I wasn't sure if I was ready to have my two worlds collide. I anticipated that there would be enough occupying my mind over a bio-family dinner, that I wouldn't want the added distraction of having Mom-Mom there. I know me. I would worry about her; I wanted to be able to focus on genes, unfettered by the environment that did an exceptional job with my raising.

I was infinitely more nervous to go to the bio-family dinner than I was to meet Bio-mom the previous day. I spent a good part of the day pacing and alternating between wringing my hands and twiddling my thumbs.

Susie had told me, in almost an almost apologetic tone, that they hadn't told the little ones (the bio-half- nephews) about the nature of my relationship with the bio-family. "We just thought they might be too young to understand. We've told them a friend is coming for dinner."

Not a problem! Are you kidding to even think you have to apologise?

My cousins' kids - 2nd cousins or once removed?! - are a bit older (9 and 11). During the "normal" family Christmas festivities, it was quite normal for the conversation to turn to my impending momentous event, the meeting with Bio-mom. We talked about it naturally and openly without a thought of what the little-somehow-cousins thought about all this. In the subsequent days it became clear that they had been paying attention and had even picked up the vernacular.

"Ellie," the younger of the little-somehow-cousins pulled on the sleeve of my sweater as I rummaged through my bag for the key to the rental car, "are you going to see Bio-mom now?" He stopped me in my tracks. "Bio-mom" had just flown from his tongue like the most natural thing in the world. I hugged that cute little somehow-cousin hard. He told me to have fun.

There was really nothing to be nervous about, but I did a commendable job at finding things to worry over:

Seattle rains. I don't normally drive. I will have to drive in an unknown city in the rain .... And the return trip will be dark. Oh my!

What if the bio-family decide to keep me and don't let me leave. They could put me in the dungeon (normally called basements) and feed me TV dinners until Stockholm Syndrome takes sway, and I decide to spend the rest of my life in the upper left hand corner of the USA. Oh my.

The drive was fine. Slight drizzle, and bio-half-brother gave incredibly precise directions.

Dinner was fine. Maybe it would even have been wonderful (in a weird way) if I didn't keep leaving my body to look down at the gathering of people and asking myself one of three questions: "Where are you?"; "What are you doing here?"; and, "Who are these people?".

I also spent a lot of time wondering what those people thought of me.

I was fairly confident that Susie was just happy to get to know me. She was warm, sweet, and concerned to be sure I was ok. Bio-half-sister seemed quite serious, but immediately open to having another member of the family. "It's like my grandma always says, 'the more the merrier'." (She was referencing her paternal grandmother, who, I suppose would be my bio-step-grandmother).

Bio-half-brother seemed a bit more distant. I got the impression he didn't care one way or another about me; as long as his mom was happy. Over the course of dinner, at the times when I returned to my body, I made some jokes, and bio-half-brother laughed. He made some jokes, and I laughed. I think we may share a sense of humour. He warmed up.

Bio-step-dad gave me a bear hug and told me I was welcome anytime. I think he was grateful that I had reached out and given Susie some peace of mind.

Bio-brother's wife stayed on the edges of the dinner all evening. I felt like she was having her own out-of-body experience as she watched the family she knew get acquainted with a new piece of the gene pool. We are lucky our out-of-body selves didn't bump into each other as they hovered and watched the (non)event (just a nice time, really) unfold.

The little, clueless bio-half-nephews ran around playing with recently received Christmas presents.

Before I left for the evening bio-stepdad took a photo of me with Bio-mom and bio-half brother and bio-half sister in front of the Christmas tree whilst bio-half-sister-in-law floated between picture taking and rambunctious bio-half nephews.

How could it not get surreal with all these 'bios' and 'steps' and 'halves' involved?

Date Doesn't Blind

There were three biological meetings in three consecutive days.  I dub them:

 a)  the blind date

 b)  the out of body experience

 c)  the mom sandwich

This is a about (a).

The blind date,was my first encounter with my very own DNA  in the form of Susie, my bio-mom, and it was all very blind-date-ish.  We had agreed to meet at the restaurant atop the Seattle Space Needle, which might seem a bit Hollywood naff (along the lines of  the Meg Ryan - Tom Hanks / Warren Beatty - Annette Benning / and Carey Grant - Deborah Kerr pairings respectively meeting up at the top of the Empire State Building in Sleepless in Seattle and the two versions of An Affair to Remember). 

I had solicited venue suggestions from local family. Most agreed that the Seattle Space Needle was, if not ‘naff’, probably not ideal.  But Mom-Mom suggested the Space Needle; then Bio-Mom also suggested the Needle, and who am I to argue with two mothers? 

As the day approached family and friends wished me luck, sent me greetings, and asked how I was feeling.  It appears that meeting your Bio-Mom for the first time is a perceived to be a momentous event.  So why was I so calm and cool?

I am exceptional at the practice of disassociation. Maybe I just wasn’t fully present during the lead up to the meeting.  Maybe I was withdrawing into a warm little shell of my own making?  I just wasn’t as nervous as it seemed I was supposed to be.

The morning of the date, I talked to The Man who put an end to that line of thinking. 

“I don’t know.  I’m just not that nervous for what itis.  It’s like I’m going on a blinddate.” I explained.

“You guys have been writing letters for months now. All the big, important stuff is out of the way.  In fact, it will probably be boring and anticlimactic.”  Bless The Man for his knack at packaging things up in a pithy, faux-hard-hearted way.

Biomom and I ended up NOT meeting at the top of the Space Needle.  We bumped into each other in the lobby waiting for the lift.  We recognised each other immediately (for my part thanks to the pictures we had shared; I don’t think I would have recognised Susie as the font of my genes if she had been a stranger passing by.)  We hugged.Our eyes welled up.  We started some small talk in the lift until the Space Needle employee started a little educational lesson about the structure, at which point we politely listened.

Conversation quickly resumed.  It was neither boring nor anticlimactic, but neither was it the ‘big emotional stuff’ of naff Hollywood films.  It was all very natural –although the flow of the conversation was chaotic as we followed strains that were raised in our letters, then remembered other, unrelated questions, which were then interrupted by suddenly remembered anecdotes. 

I had planned on 2 hours.  We had to drag ourselves away after 3.

In the circular driveway under the Seattle Space Needle, Susie's family picked her up, so I had the chance to very quickly meet my younger bio-half siblings and my step-bio-dad. I was a thankful in a naughty type of way that they couldn’t park and had to pull away.  It gave me the chance to catch my breath, because, yes, this is where the weirdness /uniqueness of the whole experience got a bit overwhelming.

As a side note, I don’t recommend eating at the restaurant in the Seattle Space Needle.  The food is average at best and overpriced; but it serves as an obvious meeting point when you find yourself on a blind date (of sorts) in Seattle.

Laundry Mat Remembered

I am looking for a flat to buy. Looking is hard work and makes for a busy agenda. From here to there to further afield and back again. In between flat viewings, you occupy yourself with a minimum number of conference calls or responding to emails. You take the (smelly) dog to get a bath; you go get gynaecological exam results (¡estupendo!); you try to write a blog post or two. Before you know it you have seen five flats in one day; you are hungry and cranky and tired and really don't relish the short walk from here to home.

You pass a tintorería. It is a dark, yet pale, green colour. A green dirty from long ago years. Very 1950s or 60s or 70s. Nothing younger. The dank laundry mat smells fresh and clean. In the less than 5 seconds it takes to walk by, the cleaner transports me to a different time: January 1993. I have been to this cleaner before, my gut assures me.

You went there to do your laundry when you came to visit The Man when you were still nothing more than friends and he rented the room from The Dog Walker's mother.

No way, I tell myself. You are creating false memories.

The street sign at the next corner reprimands my skepticism. It is the street on which The Man lived when he rented a room from The Dog Walker's mother. My gut was right. I had been to that cleaner. It was not a false memory.

A block further on and an elderly lady stops me to ask if I know where Calle Escosura is. If I hadn't just passed it in a reverie of nostalgia, I wouldn't have been ale to show off my knowledge of my adopted city. I try to keep my game face in check and cool whilst I direct the lady toward the street where The Man used to live and around the corner from whereI did a load of laundry in 1993.

Caprice Empties Stomach

The regimen got off to an inauspicious start.

On the first day of my experiment with the Dr. Oz 3-day detox cleanse, my blender gave out. It worked just fine for easy-to-drink, easier-to-digest drink #1 (nothing more difficult to slice through than a spinach leaf). The ingredients of Drink #2 proved more resilient (cucumbers, kale*, pineapple, green apple, oh, and celery – lots of it). I opened the lid to mix up the ingredients a bit – push some celery down to the blade. I replaced the lid and hit ‘p’ (which I suppose is for ‘puree’ but I’ve never known, nor really even thought about, until right now).

Vrroooommm.

The blender made a hell of a racket but none of the passengers in the glass chassis made a move.

Hmmmm.

I pushed ‘p’ again and again. I smelt a bit of burning rubber kind of like the smell of tar being laid in summertime. I lifted the glass chassis from the motor of the blender only to have its plastic bottom fall away overheated, warped, and no good to anyone ever again.

I always hated that blender. It was a piece of shit that The Man and I got from a friend when the friend and his then girlfriend split up and were disposing of their mutual possessions. A crappy blender was the metaphor for their crappy relationship.

Meanwhile, I still had a refrigerator full of the ingredients that were to get me through 3 days of detoxifaction.

God damn it. 

I was hungry when the blender broke. I threw in the towel right there and then. The broken blender was my excuse. I gorged on chunks of blender-thrashing pineapple, cucumber, celery and kale. Once I had my fill, I threw the remnants away and went about the rest of my busy day – which was indeed busy; from one appointment to another and then with a stop in a store to see about buying a new blender. I had barely cheated (eating lunch as food rather than drinking it as liquid) and toyed with the idea of resuming. The price of blenders (and their brethren, juicers) gave me pause.

Why am I doing this, again? 

 If it weren’t for the refrigerator full of the ingredients, I may not have felt such a commitment to the plan. I didn’t buy a new blender, but decided to have a glass of wine and begin fresh the next day by either eating the fruits and veggies like a normal person or by borrowing a food processer from someone with a less crappy blender than I had had. As it would happen, I had an alternative mixing device – smaller, less assuming, yet more powerful than the crappy blender.

I resumed the detox plan, starting over. Day 2 became Day 1.

I had read some accounts (not dissimilar to the one I am writing now) of the detox experience on the internet. I kind of scoffed at the woe-is-me moments of weakness and self-congratulations at the end of it all.

It’s only 3 days! Anyone can sip only smoothies for three days.

I believe my hubris came from the still-fresh-in-my-mind marathon training and the associated pain, discomfort, discipline required. By day 2 of detox I was bitchy and annoyed at everything and walking through my appointments with a caffeine-deprivation headache.

Can chamomile tea ever reach the satisfaction levels provided by a shot of espresso? Why are you doing this? 

Whim. A cousin has been raving about how Dr. Oz will change my life. I already eat much more healthfully than she ever has, and I’m relatively sporty. The last time I went to a doctor (albeit, not one with a television show), and he opened the envelope that contained the results to my last medical, he exclaimed, ‘Estupendo!’ Can it get any better than that?  So, again, why this experiment with detoxification?

I ate too many crisps over the weekend; felt a surge of salt in my veins; bought the detox ingredients on a whim; and dug in my heals. Whim and obstinacy. 

There is no other reason for me to be doing this. I’d rather be drinking 90 Schilling.

I suppose I must look on the bright side: Dr. Oz’s 3 day detox cleanse did in that crappy blender.

* I didn’t know what kale looked like, so to buy it I had to look it up. If you are interested, in Spanish, Kale is either berza or col rizado. In my bout of whimisical detox ingredient purchasing, I forgot the exact translation. Turns out I inadvertently substitute cabbage for kale. 

Cologne Remembered

I stand on the platform at the Köln train station. I have finished the cup of tea that was supposed to join me for the first 15-20 minutes of my journey, but for two factors: when I arrived at the coffee shop with 10 minutes to spare, the queue was not as long as it might have been and my train is delayed by 10 minutes.
20 extra minutes!

I have an empty take-away tea cup. I find the recycling bins along the platform, separate the plastic top from the paper cup and dispose of the deconstructed drinking apparatus appropriately. I find a spot amongst the growing crowd of waiters, waiting for a late train.

I seem to remember that there is something about the Köln train station architecture that I have loved. I look to my left, which according to my instinct, is east-ish, but I have no real proof. (I visualise a map of the city to try to confirm my instinct. According to my mind's eye. the Dom lies just south and on the eastern edge of the railway station. Looking east (I believe) I see it.

I'm right! I knew left was east!

I feel confident with my instinctual sense of direction, though admittedly my mental map cannot qualify as proof).

East-ish is where I find the architectural fancy that caught my fancy. I try to think of the words to describe the wrought iron whims on the eastern-ish side of the train station. "Umbrellas." I initially think without proper satisfaction. The metaphor that I decide upon: giant lace kerchiefs blown up by the wind in the centre yet weighed down where they are tied together on the four edges.

I love this view.

I realise that, because I have quit my job this will be the penultimate time I experience this particular view. I have another trip planned for handover in late February. I will be accompanied then and will probably not have the time, quiet, solitude to enjoy the view.

"You should have enjoyed these trips more." I tell myself, though quickly follow up with forgiveness because I know I am ultra responsible and therefore prone to work related stress, which tends to take the enjoyment out of train station views.

Along the main eastern-ish arch just before and above the whimsical series of lace kerchief arches there is a sign I have seen a number of times, but not yet registered until now. 4711 in a teal-ish, turquoise-ish blue. Under the number it says something in German - an adjective for Köln and "Wasser" which I know is water, and it is only now - thanks to a comment made by a local customer yesterday about Köln's cologne - that I recollect a bottle of this cologne from my childhood; it was always a standard part of my father's cologne collection.

I am no longer surprised by the outlandish associations between present and past, the here and the elsewhere, that happen in my head.

Nobility on the Bus

Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands will be stepping down! It makes me wonder if Lizzie harbours any such intentions. I tend to doubt it. I will be seeing Harry on the #14 before She abdicates.

Stomach Growls

I have spent the better part of a day travelling to get to a run-down hotel next to the train station in Cologne. I had hoped the hotel would serve food, or that there would at least be a restaurant adjacent. After checking in and checking out the hotel brochure-ware in the room, I realise I will have to take a walk if I want to eat before hitting the hay. I don't feel like eating in a restaurant. I want to browse the Internet whilst I eat. Eating in my room (where the run-down hotel does provide free-of-charge wifi) seems the most comfortable option.

What am I going to eat?

I take a walk to look for some acceptable take-away.

I end up back in the train station. As far as train stations go, it's not at all bad. There are plenty of shops and news stands, florists and pharmacies. Pharmacies seem to be called something that is most closely related to the English word "apothecary". I learnt the word apothecary from Shakespeare. I think back to a moment in time when I was travelling on business with a then-colleague of mine. He was British, older and egg-heady. I jokingly told him that pharmacies in the USA are not called pharmacies, but rather apothecaries. I remember he nodded, stroked his chin, and muttered "oh, I see, I see." I hadn't for a moment thought that he would believe me. He did though, or at least pretended to - giving me the glory for having "gotten him".

I loop around the mini food court section of the Köln train station. Once. Twice. On the third loop I force myself to make a decision.

I end up back in the hotel and eat my sandwich made with loving care from the strapping young German man at the local Subway.

I am slightly mortified by my admission. I believe the last time I was in a Subway sandwich shop was over five years ago in Woking, where it seemed many of the local residents were pregnant teenagers.

That seems a good, controversial note to end on.

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I hadn't intended to go down the path I did above. Free form, baby.

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